Published April 25, 2023 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Three years of wastewater surveillance for new psychoactive substances from 16 countries

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Description

The proliferation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) over recent years has made their surveillance complex. The analysis of raw municipal influent wastewater can allow a broader insight into community consumption patterns of NPS. This study examines data from an international wastewater surveillance program that collected and analysed influent wastewater samples from up to 47 sites in 16 countries between 2019 and 2022. Influent wastewater samples were collected over the New Year period and analysed using validated liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry methods. Over the three years, a total of 18 NPS were found in at least one site. Synthetic cathinones were the most found class followed by phenethylamines and designer benzodiazepines. Furthermore, two ketamine analogues, one plant based NPS (mitragynine) and methiopropamine were also quantified across the three years. This work demonstrates that NPS are used across different continents and countries with the use of some more evident in particular regions. For example, mitragynine has highest mass loads in sites in the United States, while eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone increased considerably in New Zealand and in several European countries, respectively. Moreover, 2F-deschloroketamine, an analogue of ketamine, has emerged more recently and could be quantified in several sites, including one in China, where it is considered as one of the drugs of most concern. Finally, some NPS were detected in specific regions during the initial sampling campaigns and spread to additional sites by the third campaign. Hence, wastewater surveillance can provide an insight into temporal and spatial trends of NPS use.

Notes

The authors sincerely thank the wastewater treatment plant operators for their help in collecting samples and the support provided by the lab staff who performed the extraction of the samples. The authors also thank SCIEX for the use of their instrument and Liam O'Brien for his statistical advice. The University of Iceland wants to particularly acknowledge Efla hf. and Veitur ohf. for their assistance with sample collection. SLU acknowledges the support of Inga Haalck, Oscar G¨otlind and Gabriel Persson for sample collection. IGE acknowledges the support of Nelly Laforet and Myriam Millet-Perrin for sample collection. The Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Queensland, gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Queensland Department of Health. R. B. is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE220100381), and J. M. is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Laureate Fellowship (project number FL200100028) funded by the Australian Government. N.R acknowledges funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie Grant Agreement No. 896141. L. B. acknowledges the grant RYC2020–028936-I funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by "ESF Investing in your future". E.G-L. acknowledges the financial support of the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid- Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with Complutense University in the line Program to Stimulate Research for Young Doctors in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation) (project number PR65/19–22432). T.B, A.C. and A. v. N. would like to thank European Union's Justice Programme—Drugs Policy Initiatives, EuSeME (project number: 861602) and the University of Antwerp and Research Scientific Foundation Flanders (FWO, project number: G060920N) for the funding of their research. The Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) Programme group P1–0143 and ARRS-ARRS Flanders Research Foundation (project: N1–0143) is also acknowledged. The Italian group thank the Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga (Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Rome; "Aque reflue" project) for partial funding of this research, and Metropolitana Milanese for sampling collection. Samples from Arizona were acquired with partial support from an award by the J.M. Kaplan Fund to RUH: OneWaterOneHealth nonprofit project 30009070 of the Arizona State University Foundation. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the funding agencies.

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Bade et al. 2023 Water Research X - Three years of wastewater surveillance for new psychoactive substances from 16 countries.pdf

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DOI
10.1016/j.wroa.2023.100179

Funding

NTS-EXPOSURE – The innovative wastewater-based epidemiology approach with the advances of high resolution mass spectrometry as a complementary biomonitoring tool for assessing the health status of a population 896141
European Commission